Puzzles in non-puzzle games

I'm playing through The Talos Principle and it's quite fun. Allegedly, it began development when Croteam wanted to find a better way to integrate puzzles into Serious Sam. TTP has some really smart mechanics and tricks (along with a beautiful engine), but I find it hard to see a FPS working into the gameplay. I can see myself being annoyed if some parts were extracted from it to go into SS 4: the hard puzzles were too slow-paced and required planning, and the easy puzzles were mindless busywork.

What's the best way to add puzzles to a FPS (or any other action game), to keep it from feeling like padding or gimmicky? Is it fair to prevent progress based on a challenging puzzle, or for them to be so easy you wonder why it's there in the first place? Should puzzles even be added to non-puzzle games in the first place, are they ever necessary to pacing?

Bumping

The problem is that puzzles and FPS games don't mix well since they're way too differently paced. Either the puzzles would have to be really fast paced, in which case what's the point, or the shooting has to be slow as fuck, which typically isn't fun. ]

Not even to break up certain sections, keep the player from rushing? Even Doom had keycards and mazes, rudimentary puzzles.

Keyhunting isn't really much of a puzzle. Though using it to break up the action is a better way of doing it, it's gotta be relatively simple since most people playing aren't there for the puzzles. A good FPS won'the keep you away from the action for too long.

Yeah but the mazes were filled with demons and miniguns. You had to explore, but had fun doing it

*won't

Well it's not like an FPS can't have slower-paced parts, right? In fact, if you just keep running and shooting and shooting and running, you're gonna get tired. Something like a puzzle or a story moment/dialog scene is a good way of breaking action into more manageable chunks so that you don't have to quit the game to take a rest from action.

Then why not make a slightly more enjoyable puzzle, while keeping it simple? Portals and beam transmitters both feel like things that could work in a full FPS, in both solving puzzles and expanding ways to kill enemies. They're both pretty simple point-and-click mechanics that can easily scale to higher difficulties. Perhaps all the mandatory puzzles should be easy, then secrets or bonus levels could require more thinking


I'm not saying puzzle sections should only be played separately from FPS sections. A good FPS doesn't force you away from the core gameplay, but thinking about other things (like puzzles, story) might be better on the player's fatigue

This can work, but it would need to be an established mechanic that helps in combat. Solving puzzles using tools you already have could make for a good little breather from the rest of the action.

new Serious Sam is coming, I really really hope they attempt it.
I want a FPS with some real meaty puzzles in it. In HL2 Episode 2, when the bridge turned out to be a fulcrum, not a complicated puzzle, but the reveal made me pop a boner. Half Life, Half Life 2 had simple puzzles, I want an FPS with puzzles hard enough to fail.


I love FPS with slow-downs in the pace. a recovery period and then another ramp up is the best. it allows the gameplay to be more ballbusting since the player doesn't get exhausted.

I don't think puzzles should be put into straightforward FPS games. They could work in FPS/RPG hybrids, though.

Not saying it can't. Just that puzzles typically bring it to a screeching halt, which isn't great. Its always important for an FPS to keep a sense of flow and typically, if a puzzle is to get worked in at all, it has to be something that one can flow into rather than being an obstacle. HL2 is a fine example of how not to do puzzles in an FPS. Yes it breaks up the pace, but is it really fun to go from a thrilling chase to a fucking seesaw puzzle? Its hard to make a decent puzzle in an FPS without it being either a pace killer or gimmicky as all fuck. That said, if one were to make puzzles around something you can obtain and also use in combat, like maybe a portal gun that if you shoot an enemy with it, it can do some damage as well as being a good way to get a better position in the battlefield when in a tight spot or a continuous laser beam weapon that's laser can be used with the environment to deal with enemies and solve puzzles, that could work. If the puzzle elements are worked in so you can use what you've learned from before without it seeming like a complete change of style, then it can work in my opinion.

If I got a good impression, they were thinking of using jammers, mines and force fields as a replacement for keycard hunting. So it was still to be fast paced, but with a bit more fresh take on the keycard hunt.

it's good to throw them in for variety. for instance the simple puzzles on embed related only made it a better game

I'm the odd one out that wants the pace killing puzzles. HL puzzles were simple to not disrupt the pace, I want the next level. Maybe even a puzzle game with intermittent shooting.

You're the one who actually understands what pacing and cadence is.

but I still want this, I want ball busting puzzles even if they kill the pace

Puzzles are OK if they're in areas where there are no enemies, and if they take place after a short wind-down period. Just don't let them stop the flow of the game.

what stops you from solving puzzles while you're shootan?

Puzzles and combat require different types of thinking and strategy. It's almost impossible to do both at once, unless you make one of them piss-easy, which just ruins the experience.

What if shooting is the puzzle?

this kills the puzzle

Wouldn't matter. Having to respond with quick reflexes and tactical thinking, while simultaneously thinking about abstract problem-solving is incredibly difficult, if not impossible. Maybe it could be done, if the designer is a genius. But I'd have to see it in action before I'd be convinced.

I think Valve had the right idea with HL2. Basically the thought process was that puzzles were a change of pace for the player to prevent them from getting burnt out on an endless stream of combat. Granted it would've been better if they did more than just physics puzzles, but still.

Honestly, I feel that with the release of the Orange Box, they actually were closer to solving the issue than they ever were before. They realized that you needed a break from the action, so they threw in a few puzzles. The problems were that they were almost always gimmicky or just straight up mood killing with only Ravenholm really showing signs of a perfect mix at hand. However, with the Orange Box and the release of Portal, something Valve apparently only released as a "we're sorry for taking so long" present and (if I recall correctly) originally a hidden proof of concept for portal mechanics to put in HL2E3, they could have easily let the portal puzzles gel with the combat mechanics by allowing for use of portals to solve puzzles AND be a useful asset to combat. I feel the best way to put puzzles in FPSs is by using established mechanics in more interesting ways rather than just making busywork through slapdash puzzles.